old mike

The people, especially the staff and the live music.

26 minutes ago, Copper10-8 said:

 

Sure thing however, that info Re; Amsterdam providing assistance for those with independent travel arrangements has been changed for the positive, based on the latest reports from folks onboard.......

From, a Canadian perspective You're too polite☺️

Patience people,  consider the order of magnitude math, 

assume an average of 2000 people per ship and 14 ships and say that many tours booked for every alternate  day, then over the 30 day suspension that gives an order of magnitude number of refunds of 400,000. Even at half that it's still a lot of transactions. 

KIndergirl,

There are times when the best course of action is to do nothing,  and for many that is the hardest thing to do.

If you haven't already done this please sit down and as objectively as you possibly can write down  a list of your options as you understand them and then write down the  pros and cons against each option.

The physical writing part is important. When you've done that go over what you have written and attempt to remove any adverbs and adjectives. That is not an exercise in grammar it will force you to be objective and be sure that what you have written is factual and not an emotional response or based on uncertain information.

Your already know well enough that your parents do not need your well being added to their current list of concerns.

I so agree with the comments by Iancal.

I'm staggered at the attitude of entitlement and bluntly disgusted at the self interest and personal gain so clearly espoused by some on this site.

Trying times bring out both the best but also reveals the lack of mores in some. 

There are many in this world outside of the supposedly developed world with zero access to any kind of medical care or any care and support other than the immediate family, I've lived and worked among them and I feel for them at this time. 

 We have a friend on the Celebrity ship no ilness and also denied access to San Antonio.  I just heard from him that Ecuador has also closed their ports.The popular ship locater website now has a coronavirus cruise ship locater!!!

Kindergirl,

 You've probably figured out by now that the majority of people on this site care about others and would bend over backwards if they could to help. please please let us know the outcome. As you can see I'm also a Canadian and I'm very aware of the recent appeals by the Federal government for canadians abroad go return home by commercial carriers hwilst that option is still available.

Go bigger guys,

even if they have/had  the insurance, the question becomes how far is/was the risk spread across the underwriting/re-insurance industry deep pockets. Are they going to be solvent when all the shoes finish dropping

Cancelled through our PCC on the 10th, the refund from insurance arrived on my credit card  yesterday the 13th,

I also received notification by e-mail of refunds of pre-purchased excursions and other items on the 13th.  Based on prior similar pre-purchased items, I would expect to see the  actual refund to my credit card on Monday or Tuesday. 

Kindergirl

 Now would be the time to use some yoga techniques for breathing and relaxing.

Are you the individual registered as  the emergency contact for your parents? this could effect how the HAL systems may respond to enquiries from you. You state that your parents are not technically savvy, did someone help them print off their luggage tags and boarding pass, if so that person may well have a record of their cabin number.

Our observations over 6 years is that HAL have always been considerate, compassionate and eventually organized. They will not just dump your parents on the dockside to fend for themselves.

never has. It has always been 90%.

2 minutes ago, Niagarawine said:

They need to refund the money,can’t sail from Vancouver, cruise is cancelled, refund the money, simple

Only simple if they have the cash flow or the credit worthiness to borrow the money, otherwise it's potential force majeure or bankruptcy. I don't know which companies the travel industry uses as primary insurers or underwriters but this could also take some of the insurers to the wall if the risk is not spread widely enough.

We use a PCC and when we decided to cancel on Monday, by e-mail, the response was immediate.  If you go the email route, I'd suggest you should set a request for delivery confirmation and a confirmation of it being opened.

BIggest problem I had was waiting on the phone to cancel our independent medical insurance coverage 2 hours of muzak then the battery in the handset died without warning  so I pIugged in an old fashioned corded phone and waited another 2 and 1/2 hours.

2 hours ago, Tapi said:

At my company (in the travel industry) we had a panel of experts from the CDC here in ATL that came and spoke to us directly. We had a long Q&A session. Long story short, I walked out of that meeting feeling much better and well informed about whats truly going on, statistics, and what's being done. 

 

True, the media is reporting what the CDC and other reputable organizations are saying, but unfortunately there are also many media outlets that are placing their own spin on what's going on, using sensational language that muddy the facts, speculating, and placing personal opinions ahead of true information. And that's what I consider sensationalizing the story. 

Agree with you on the irresponsible media, but there is a time to not fight the flow.  For us  today  was one of those times, my career involved managing risk in a highly uncertain and unpredictable environment so not a stranger to risk. Yesterday our friends, for valid reasons, cancelled out on the Noordam repositioning from Australia  to Canada, that plus a notification on coverage restrictions from our private medical insurance plan over COVID19,  we cancelled out our cruise this am. Not frightened of the Virus it is the panic reactions of backside covering bureaucrats that scare me. The National Guard are being called out to help police the New Rochelle area of New York which has a high apparent spread rate for the Virus.

Print off a copy of this article, https://penntoday.upenn.edu/2014-06-05/research/too-much-noise-bad-your-health and hand it to the offenders.

There are so many inconsiderate people around in todays society. My biggest peeve are those that have their hand held device set to make a click on every key press or make a noise when they receive a message or e-mail and then  just don't seem to recognize  the sound pollution they are generating. It's no surprise that mental health seems to be a rising problem in young people. 

No change for us,we'llbe flying into Sydney Australia on the 17th March and cruising back to Vancouver  on the Noordam.My wife startedvher packing routine today, she'll repepack a tleast five times before we leave. It's become a routine for her and part of the anticipation of the cruise.

Everyone it seems is hanging their hats on 14 days. I wouldn't take that to the bank just yet. I have seen no data on the virus's ability to survive outside of a human host. Think of west nile. Containment in todays world of travel is a delusion. 

Had lots of similar problems, one cruise in particular, 56 days on the westerdam from Vanvouver to Singapore in tne fall of 2017, just one problem after another with all our prepurchased, dinners/drinks/trips. Apparently the systems did not update correctly at the start of the cruise. I had hard paper copies and electronic copies of all the purchased vitems and got tired of producing them. Being in a Neptune with the concierge  service was helpful, I would otherwise have spent hours at the guest services counter or on the phone.We no longer prepurchse anything  and never will again. The staff on board are fantastic, the IT people who do not have to interface directly with customers are a disaster as far as we are concerned, and the whole debacle was front and center on our post cruise review to HAL

I personally see more and more issues in everyday life related to attrocioius  quality assurance practices in the software industry. Since the inception it's an industry sector that has consistently over promised and  grossly underdelivered with no to minimal liability  consquences. 

toungue in cheek the attached video is probably from the company that supplies IT services to HAL

 sumo citrus said

3. Again, who cares? It floats, doesn't it? I am no more concerned with an azipod than I am with the toilet flush mechanism in the Crows Nest head.

Now that is an important point, the next washrooms are quite a hike from the crows nest and there's  nothing worse than a sudden onset "travellers gut" and a none functioning washroom with the inevitible yellow tape or cone blocking the access. It's the kind of situation that was the inspiration for the Monty Python Ministry of Silly Walks sketch.

Start looking for your next fix.

We know the feeling, we're about 9 weeks away from flying to Sydney to cruise back to Vancouver. knowing that my wife will go through serious withdrawal whan we get back to Canada I've already booked the next cruise for 2021. 

You do have to accept that cruising is an addiction!!!  If you have offspring, you can start thinking about how to tell them that the inheritance may be a bit smaller than they were hoping for. 

We have done it twice on the Zaandam.

Fabulous is a much abused word but we think the south america cruise is just that especially if you are interested in the history, culture and archeaology of countries visited. The scenery around Patagonia is Alaska on steriods and the desert of the northern coastal regions has it's own stark beauty.  We also liked the balance between port and sea days.

In the Falklands the penguins are the big attraction, we did the Bluff cove trip on both our visits, it was default the second time as we didn't book until on board ans the other trip to see Rock Hopper Penguins was sold out. Bluff Covex was just as much fun the second time since there were several one year old baby  kIngs still in their fur coat stage.

Enjoy

We did the re-positioing from Auckland to  Vancouver in the spring of 2017 and we are repeating it this spring .Several tours we did in 2017 we will repeatif time permits, The HOHO bus in Auckland, done before we boarded in 2017. The Museum is well worth a visit. In Hobart we visited the bonorang wildlife conservatory where hand feeding the free roaming Kangaroos  was my wifes highlight of the whole cruise, unfortunately Hobart is not on the itinerary for this years repositioning. Akaroa is a beautiful spot and we did a boat tour to see the small dolphins that are only found only there, walking afterwards along the shore and having fish and chips.  The lanarch castle visit is all about a facinating but tragic family story, beautiful place but with a somewhat  dark unhappy history.

7 hours ago, Woofbite said:

For some reason Skyy Vodka is only $40 a liter compared to $69 or more for the others.  I figure they missed it so I snagged some for our November trip before they notice.

Thanks for that, grabbed a bottle for our next cruise,  vodka is simply ethanol and water never mind what the distillers hype might claim   Those price increases sure are steep. 

Hope you had a great time. 

Your photograph of the russian sub reminded me of our second ever cruise and the first with HAL, it was the Veendam from San Diego in 2013. We arrived two days before the boarding date and really enjoyed walking around San DIego, when I saw that Sub I just had to crawl through it.

The only problem was that I was still in the recovery phase from a painful two years of PMR,  something that I blame on my northern european ancestry.

I did manage, just, to get through the sub compartmental watertight bulkheads by wriggling  through on my  stomach, my wife was laughing fit to bust as I floundered around like a beached whale on the deck as I tried to become bipedal again. I didn't sleep much that night until I had taken way more Tylenol than was good for my liver. 

1 minute ago, *Miss G* said:

 

I didn’t use a calculator so I thought I did pretty good!  😂

Darn right, you did

I don't know if they still teach mental arithmetic at school but the look of surprise on some young  peoples faces when confronted with mental calculations that are faster than they can pull out their cell phone calculator is amusing. Learned mine in my junior school. The  last lesson on Friday was math with the last twenty minutes being mental arithmetic, the first one to have their hand up with the correct answer to a verbally posed  question could leave school immediately.